Congratulations to @gauthamrao.bsky.social!! Some books just take their time. I am inspired that yours is out!

Do you remember . . .

Check your public television schedules. “Becoming Thurgood” will air multiple times this week and throughout the month. Catch it!

For folks who are wondering just how long #SCOTUS has had the power to behave the way it’s behaving on emergency applications (mostly since 1925), and whether the Court’s recent behavior is meaningfully different from, say, prior to 2015 (it sure is), you might find my book at least somewhat useful:

Must-watch: “Becoming Thurgood.” In NYC, it will be on starting in 10 minutes.

Charles Sumner, 1875, by #AnneWhitney (American, 1821-1915), who was born #otd, Sept 2. Located in General MacArthur Square, Cambridge, MA. #womenartists #artherstory

In the NIH funding case, Justice Gorsuch (joined by Justice Kavanaugh) claimed that this was the third time in recent weeks that lower courts had "defied" a #SCOTUS ruling. As today's "One First" explains, that claim is not only nonsense; it's enabling a dangerous anti-court narrative on the right:

That's a great question. I think I do because I read the secondary literature first& I often have other historians' thoughts on the matter top of mind. But I also keep a timeline/chronology right there too. "OK this was written in March 1922. What happened in February 1922 that may have shaped this"

This Day in Labor History: August 23, 1927. The state of Massachusetts executed two Italian immigrant anarchists by the names of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti for the murder of two men in a 1920 armed robbery in South Braintree. Their real crime: being Italian anarchists!

51 years ago, Richard Nixon resigned the presidency on national TV. Later that night, according to Jimmy Breslin’s account in How the Good Guys Finally Won, Nixon called a friend and said, “Yes, a lot of heads of state have gone to jail. Gandhi went to prison, you know.” loa.org/books/788

If judges are play-acting as historians and getting the history wildly wrong, then actual historians have a duty to step in and set the record straight. Sorry if that doesn’t stop the free fall of the profession, but we’re going to keep doing it all the same, thanks

A Westlaw search suggests that it is the first law review article ever to cite this Onion classic ... theonion.com/supreme-cour...

Okay, friends this book is really *incredible*! I spent the last week devouring all 500 pages. I couldn’t put it down. I hardly knew anything of Sumner but the caning & am now convinced he deserves a prized place in our histories. Ahead of his time, principled & unafraid to speak unpopular truths.

From @ngertner.bsky.social & me in @nytimes.com: "Ms. Bondi wrote that Judge Boasberg’s comments 'have undermined the integrity of the judiciary . . . .' No. The way to look at this is the inverse: Her Justice Department is attempting to undermine the integrity of the judiciary and the rule of law."

I’d forgotten that I shared a birthday with the VRA — as well as former President Obama. Thanks @kevinmkruse.bsky.social for the reminder, and a great essay on the DOJ’s work in putting it into effect — and the amazingly rapid effects on the law. campaign-trails.ghost.io/work-in-prog...

Agree, though I think what we really, desperately need is a movie that runs from Appomattox to the Compromise of 1877. America needs an anti-Birth of a Nation to understand how the heroes of Reconstruction got sidelined.

the voting rights act is, in its entirety, obviously constitutional under the 15th amendment, which gives congress broad and proactive authority to stop racial discrimination in voting. and you know it is obviously constitutional because roberts has had to invent entire new doctrines to gut it.

Starred review from @publisherswkly.bsky.social says The Radical Fund is “an immense and essential achievement” with an “exhilarating range of figures” and “stark parallels with the present.” www.publishersweekly.com/9781476765877

121/141 2025 Official Submission #MAAHStoneAtoZ

For example, Reconstruction. A generation of historians, from Eric Foner to Manisha Sinha, have built a rich portrait of the profound "unfinished revolution" of Reconstruction. I don't claim academic mastery, but it raised questions for me about Custer, though we associate him with the West. 3/12

I write serious history—via biography—for a non-academic audience. So I'd like to say something about Ken Burns's remark, something that also explains why AI can't write history. Pardon me for citing the example of one of my books, "Custer's Trials," on one of history's best-known figures. 1/12

I'm now obsessed with this image of sailors on the deck of a U.S. Navy gunboat during the Civil War. The guy with the banjo. The guy with the pipe. The guy reading the newspaper. The guy holding a dog. catalog.archives.gov/id/526207

Wonderful evening talking about the Declaration of Independence over the years with David Blight, Akhil Reed Amar, and Jeff Rosen at the National Convention Center.

The Posse Comitatus Act was a symbolic gesture to mark the death of Reconstruction but it was also a practical measure that ensured that white supremacist state governments enjoyed a monopoly of force. In effect, the federal government could no longer intervene.

Historian here good to see the caning of Charles Sumner get this attention. I published an article on it a long time ago in the Journal of the Early Republic which was one of their most downloaded articles for some time. jstor.org/stable/3125037

Justice Marshall jokingly called him "Junior" when he was elevated the year I clerked for Marshall at the Court. A very kind, decent and thoughtful man who was non-ideological, just and humane in his reasoning. May he rest in peace! www.nytimes.com/2025/05/09/u...

Hidden legacies! Our new American pope was born in Chicago, but his maternal ancestors were Creoles of color from New Orleans, according to Jari Honora, a genealogist and family historian at the Historic New Orleans Collection. #PopeLeoXIV

NY friends: My book talk at the @nypl.bsky.social is tomorrow at 6:30 pm. Register here - especially if you are looking for something to do besides grade exams. www.nypl.org/events/progr...

#OTD The Supreme Court rules in 1937 that Angelo Herndon's conviction for attempting to incite insurrection violated his rights to free speech & peaceable assembly: "The power of a state to abridge freedom of speech and of assembly is the exception, rather than the rule. . . ."

Valuable new paper from Wisconsin's David Schwartz about Dred Scott, due process, and enumerated powers: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Q&A | "It’s important to remember that the rights to free speech and peaceable assembly are no accident: They were hard-won and fought for." @bradsnyderprof.bsky.social discusses his new book on Angelo Herndon and the landmark SCOTUS decision that upheld the right to protest. 🔗 bit.ly/4czqVgc

Thanks to @slate.com for allowing me to tell the story of radical lawyer Carol Weiss King and how her victory in Bridges v. Wixon protects the due process and free speech rights of noncitizens such as Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk. slate.com/news-and-pol...

Been having a great time reading @bradsnyderprof.bsky.social's history of the Homestead Grays. Surprised there isn't more written about the Grays(the book is over 20 years old), but enjoying the mix of social and sport analysis in the era before integration.

So honored to have joined the scores of writers and scholars who gathered in Montgomery this weekend for an incredible conference: Telling the Stories of Black Lives through Biography! It was sponsored by @biographersintl.bsky.social, which creates a wonderful community for all of us. Such a balm!

Gerard Magliocca on Jackson's Steel Seizure concurrence. As is typical, we learn something new from Magliocca--for instance, that Jackson adopted language nearly verbatim from a memo by Assistant SG Bell! muse.jhu.edu/article/9532...

@bradsnyderprof.bsky.social I just finished Brad Snyder’s wonderfully crafted book on Curt Flood, A Well-Paid Slave. This is one of the most compelling non-fiction reads I’ve ever come across!

John Feinstein has been a great mentor and friend since I interviewed him in high school. The Season on the Brink blew my mind as a basketball-obsessed teenager. I would not be writing books today if it were not for John. May his memory be a blessing. www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2...

Should tag the author since he is on Blue Sky. @bradsnyderprof.bsky.social

D.C. Friends: Join me and my superstar colleague @stevevladeck.bsky.social for a conversation about my new book, You Can't Kill a Man Because of the Books He Reads @wwnorton.bsky.social, tonight at 7pm at Politics and Prose on Conn. Ave. politics-prose.com/brad-snyder

Today, @bradsnyderprof.bsky.social and I remember Angelo Herndon, who won us the right to march in the streets. There are many resonances between his inspiring story and our troubling times today. Read/listen below! skippedhistory.substack.com/p/the-18-yea...

I’m really excited to get to talk with my good friend and @georgetownlaw.bsky.social colleague @bradsnyderprof.bsky.social this Friday at @politicsprose.bsky.social about his new book, “You Can’t Kill a Man Because of the Books He Reads.” D.C. peeps, come join us!: politics-prose.com/brad-snyder

Did you miss our program with @bradsnyderprof.bsky.social and Kenneth Mack on Professor Snyder’s new book, You Can’t Kill a Man Because of the Books He Reads Angelo Herndon’s Fight for Free Speech? Watch it now on YouTube: youtu.be/4imU7IFe2uM?...

The Reconstruction Era has SO MUCH to teach us about what is happening right now.

I write about this fight in Black Folk. For decades, Black people were legally prevented from equal access to federal jobs. They had to fight for equal access. But their fight made things better for all workers. Access to federal jobs has always been civil rights work. wwnorton.com/books/978163...

Take 6 minutes today to listen to my (tirelessly working) husband @stevevladeck.bsky.social on why Trump’s shutdown of USAID is illegal and what it says about what could come next (spoiler: it’s not good) www.cbsnews.com/video/a-lega...